Even as he did so, Coheed—practically mad with fury—brought his right arm up and pointed his finger at the miner. The action froze the miner, who stared at the empty hand and laughed contemptuously.
Abruptly there was the sound of metal on metal, a rapid-fire series of “thunks” as metal plates beneath Coheed’s synthetic skin unfolded and interlocked. The pain for this transition made the blades seem like mere pinpricks in comparison as the skin was literally ripped away, torn to shreds by the transformation of his skeletal structure underneath into a weapon.
It was one of the times that Coheed cursed Hohenberger’s decision to craft synthetic skin for him that provided the same sensations as normal skin. “You’ll want to be able to feel all things, Coheed—both pleasure and pain. You can’t have one without the other. Trust me, you’ll thank me some day.” That was what Hohenberger had told him, and he might well have been correct. But that day wasn’t this one and it was all Coheed could do not to scream out a string of profanities. The only reason he did not was because he didn’t want to give his attackers the satisfaction.
Hydraulic pressure tubes snaked out from his elbow and insinuated themselves into his right trapezius. They provided him additional lift; otherwise the arm would have hung helplessly at his side because of the awkward new shape.
The entire process had happened incredibly quickly. Less than five seconds after he had triggered the transformation with a thought, his right arm—from the elbow to the now non-existent hand—now consisted of a massive pulser cannon.
Had the miner been faster off the mark, he might have managed to get off a shot before the transition was complete. But he was caught flatfooted, having never witnessed anything like it before.
“Not laughing now, huh,” said Coheed as he let loose with a blast at full power and at point blank range. The miner’s gun did not leave his hand. That was because the gun, the hand, and the arm were all that remained of him. The rest of him was splattered over about twenty square feet of real estate, including the two remaining miners, who were looking in horror at the blood and gore that covered them. One of them plucked at his cheek, his mind numb with shock, to discover that a molar and two incisors were embedded in his face. The other jumped back, shrieking, upon finding an entire lung plastered on his uniform front. In doing so, his foot hit a stray organ lying on the floor. His feet went out from under him and he hit the ground.
One of them stood his ground and pulled out his own weapon, firing and moving as he did. The other, who had fallen, scrambled to his feet and ran like hell, shouting at the top of his lungs, “Security breach! Security breach!”
Firing at full power the way he had meant that Coheed’s pulser cannon needed a few seconds to recharge. He twisted his body, bringing the arm up in front of his head to protect it as blasts deflected harmlessly off it. He advanced on the miner who was steadily firing. Coheed felt a flash of respect for him; the man wasn’t backing down.
Suddenly there was an explosion of air and the miner vanished for a moment, overwhelmed by a torrent of energy. Coheed shielded his eyes and when the energy subsided, what was left of the miner barely qualified as human. He was flat on his back, or what remained of his back. Not only had his clothes been stripped away, but so had his skin and a considerable portion of his muscles. His entrails were beginning to slide out and he was reaching for them, stupidly trying to shove them back in, before his hands fell to either side. Coheed actually had a clear view of the man’s heart through a gaping wound in his chest. It beat several more times and then slowed to a halt.
Coheed turned and saw Cambria, from her position against the monolith, her arm outstretched. Cambria’s concussive blasts didn’t actually generate from her hand; they were from within her mind. She just preferred to point at her target because she found it focused her aim a bit better. The glow of her psionic abilities faded from her eyes and she moaned softly. Coheed was at her side, kneeling next to her. “You okay, Cam?”
She gestured toward his cannon. “You want to point that somewhere else, sport? Wouldn’t want it to go off.”
Coheed put out a hand, which Cambria took and even squeezed affectionately as he helped her to her feet. He looked her up and down. “Seems the body armor did its job.”
“Yeah. I think I’ve got a few bruised ribs, but that’s it.” She shook her head. “Better than I deserve. Stupid. Stupid of me to let myself get distracted.”
“Don’t second guess yourself. You did great.”
“And they know we’re here. He sounded the alarm.”
“They were going to find out sooner or later.”
She gazed at the crystalline tower in the distance. “It’s incredible. They’re mining Keywork energy. They’re really doing it. I didn’t even think such a thing was possible. Who built that…that thing?”
“Whoever it is, we put an end to it, right now.”
He raised his pulse cannon and unleashed another full power blast directly at the crystalline structure. It was impossible to miss, considering its size.
The blast struck dead center, crackled harmlessly along the surface of the structure, and then fizzled out.
“All right,” said Cambria, “that could have gone better.”
“We’re going to have to get closer.”
“They may object to that.”
Coheed held up his pulser cannon. “I hope they do.”
* * *
Coheed and Cambria sprinted down the row of monoliths, trying to cover as much distance as they could before they encountered resistance.
They didn’t get that far.
Four men dressed similarly to the miners they had first encountered emerged from intersections ahead of them. They had weaponry at the ready–much larger pulsers than the miners had been wielding. Obviously there was some sort of armory in this underground refuge, and the sounding of the alarm had allowed them to prepare themselves. Or at least they thought they were prepared.
They’ll never know what hit them, thought Coheed.
He charged forward and this time, when he started firing his pulser cannon, he didn’t go for a massive blast, but instead a series of short, staccato shots, picking off the new arrivals one by one.
Reinforcements showed up in short order, and in addition to the pulsers, they had shields mounted on their left arms. Coheed fired and this time the blasts rebounded off them causing no serious damage, although the impact caused them to stagger.
There were a dozen of them, and it was going to be a stretch for her, but Cambria’s eyes glowed as she said firmly, “Drop the shields. Right now. Right now.”
A couple of them did, but the remaining troops opened fire. Coheed stepped between them and Cambria, shielding his head, his own body armor absorbing the shots. But they were doing more than just hammering him; they were provoking him.
You have to control your anger, Coheed. Focus it. It can be a valuable tool if you utilize it rather than letting it overwhelm you. The Doctor’s voice was as clear to him as if he were there next to him, whispering in his ear.
Coheed visualized his anger, rolled it up into a glowing ball, and mentally shoved it into his heart.
Then he charged.
Before, when he’d been struck by blasts, he had felt pain, the impact, even though his body armor had saved him from fatal injury.
Not this time. This time he sped forward, not slowing, refusing to acknowledge anything other than the cold fury that was driving him. He stopped firing because there was no point in expending energy. That didn’t mean the cannon still couldn’t be used for offense.
Coheed waded into the midst of their attackers, wielding the cannon like a club. He cracked the skulls of the nearest of them, grinning wolfishly at their truncated screams. He saw the terror in their eyes; no mercy in him, he gouged out those eyes with the tips of his blades. They went down screaming, clutching at their ruined faces, blood oozing from between their fingers. Not slowing, he swept his left arm, the blades slicing throug
h muscle and arteries and bone with equal facility. Blood fountained in all directions, some of it splattering on his face. He ignored it. Actually, that wasn’t strictly true. He reveled in it. He had to step over severed limbs on the floor to get at his targets, and he swung the cannon as a club once again, smashing whatever he came into contact with. One of them tried to retreat, turning his back and fleeing. Coheed leaped upon him like a great beast, driving his blades into the man’s back, severing his spinal cord. The man went down, flopping like a dead fish, and Coheed smashed his skull flat with the cannon. He took a moment to wipe some of the gore off on the remains of the man’s shirt.
“Co! Behind us!”
He spun and saw more of them barreling toward them from behind.
Now it was Cambria who was standing between Coheed and danger. “Keep going!” she said. “Get to that thing and destroy it! I’ll handle these guys and make sure no one else tries to cut us off!”
“Are you sure--?”
She stretched forth her hands and the air rippled in front of her. The new platoon was blasted backwards, scattered like so many ten pins with a massive ball driving right through the middle of them.
“Reasonably sure,” she said.
He nodded, turned, and started running.
He was now less than one hundred feet from the crystal. Certainly that had to be enough. He realized that there was no point in blasting away at the vast structure itself. Far more effective would be to assault the support points where it was anchored. The top was way too high, but a concentration of pulser blasts toward the bottom should do the trick. The crystalline structure had been mounted into a huge round bracket, and there were flickering lights running all along it. That had to be regulating the flow into the
monoliths.
It was at that point that Coheed realized what the monoliths probably were: A means of physically transporting the energy that was being gathered. The Keywork energy was being loaded into the monoliths, which would then be removed from this place and taken off to…wherever. He wasn’t entirely sure if destroying the structure would somehow restore the energy, but that would be tomorrow’s problem. Right now all he cared about was dismantling the device and putting an end to the damage it was already doing.
He took up position and aimed his pulser cannon at the huge support collar in the floor.
“Good-bye, you bastard,” he muttered as his arm cannon powered up.
Suddenly something pressed just against the base of his skull and a low voice behind him said practically in his ear, “Just what I was going to say.”
Coheed wasn’t even aware of his own movement. It was entirely reflexive. He whirled, whipping around the blades on his arm, and they sliced right through the pulser that had been shoved against the back of his head and would have, given the opportunity, blown his brains out.
Standing behind him was a tall, powerfully built, dark-skinned man, bald head glistening with a fine film of sweat. He was staring in surprise at the shattered remains of the pulser that were still in his hand. “All right. That was impressive,” he said. He spoke with a low rumble that seemed to originate from somewhere around his ankles.
Coheed felt as if he should know the man. He had to think that Cambria would have. They had both had a ton of information crammed into their heads, and Cam had been dealing with it far more effectively than he.
Wanting to conserve the cannon’s firepower for the crystal, Coheed tried to bring the weapon around as a club once more. But the man dropped the shattered gun and caught the cannon before it could impact. He smiled grimly. “Nice try.”
He seemed to move only minimally, yet suddenly Coheed had been twisted completely around, the pulse cannon shoved deep into his own back. He tried to bring the blades back around, but he was out of position, and then his attacker had grabbed his blade arm by the wrist, immobilizing it. “Who are you?” said the attacker.
“The end,” said Coheed with a grunt, his mind racing, trying to come up with a plan of attack even as his spine creaked under the way his body was being bent.
“Better than you have tried. I did not rise to the rank of General to be taken down by someone with delusions of grandeur.”
When he said that, it suddenly clicked in Coheed’s mind. Previous vids he’d seen of him, the self-described General had been in full armor and visible only from a distance. Now, though, he knew him for who he was.
“You’re Deftinwolf. Mayo Deftinwolf.”
“Yes.” Deftinwolf pushed down harder, trying to get Coheed to cry out. It didn’t work. Coheed bit down deep into his lip rather than give any vocal confirmation that he was in distress. Still, he was immobilized in the General’s grip. Coheed did the only thing he could think of: With a thought, he retracted the pulser cannon. It wasn’t going to do him any good anyway since the General was holding him in such a way that the cannon was pointed away from him.
The General was caught off guard when the gun suddenly vanished to be replaced by a mechanical hand and forearm. For a scant moment, Deftinwolf lost his grip. It was all that Coheed required, and he spun around so that he was face to face with the startled General.
“Hah!” bellowed Coheed as he slammed his head forward into the General’s face.
He thought he would be rewarded with the cracking of nose and bone and perhaps a copious amount of blood flying. Instead the General’s skull seemed hard as rock, and the impact staggered Coheed as much as it did the General. Still, it was enough to drive the General back a couple of feet.
They circled each other warily, the General seemingly having new respect for Coheed. “I just assumed you were holding some manner of weapon. It did not occur to me that it was a part of your body. What is your body, anyway?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“It will be when I have it dissected.” He waggled his fingers in a “come here” manner. “Don’t keep me waiting, little man. Let’s see what you’ve got.”
Coheed wasted no time. He came straight at the General, delivering a series of blows so quick that his fists were little more than blurs.
The General did not back up so much as an inch. His own hands moving so quickly that Coheed couldn’t even see them, the General deflected every attempted strike as if Coheed were a child. Coheed tried to bring his blades to bear, but the General pivoted and lashed out with his foot, driving it deep into Coheed’s gut. Coheed’s body armor protected him from damage, but the impact drove the air out of him and knocked him on his ass. He scrambled to his feet as the General advanced on him. The world was spinning around him and Coheed tried not to sway, tried to pull himself together, feeling battered and exhausted not only from the pounding he was taking from Deftinwolf, but the agony of the transitions he’d had to put his body through. “It won’t always be this difficult, Coheed,” Hohenberger had assured him. Coheed was starting to wonder if he was going to have sufficient opportunity to find out if Hohenberger had been lying.
“Is that all you have?” said the General.
And suddenly the air was blasted apart with what sounded like a muffled explosion and the General was off his feet, flying end over end. He slammed into one of the monoliths and rebounded off it, hitting the floor.
Coheed whirled and saw Cambria standing several feet away, her arm outstretched. “No. He’s got me,” she said.
“I thought you were watching our backs,” said Coheed.
“I decided to see what was taking you so long.”
“Two against one,” said Deftinwolf, getting to his feet. “Still far less than you’ll need, but the odds are a marginal improvement.”
“Shut up,” said Cambria. She gestured again and the air came to life once more. The General was blasted backwards. When he hit the floor, he skidded out of control and wound up crashing to a halt against the vast structure that was Coheed’s target.
“Take it down, Coheed. In fact, take them both down.”
“Together?”
“Absolutely.”
The cannon rematerialized on his arm, and without hesitation, he fired. At the exact same time, Cambria unleashed a concussive blast of energy.
“No!” shouted the General, but he had no choice save to get out of the way. The blast from Coheed’s pulser cannon and Cambria’s hands arrived at the structure’s base simultaneously. The resulting explosion was deafening, smashing apart the metal collar, sending metal and crystal flying in all directions. For a moment nothing seemed to happen, and suddenly power—unleashed Keywork energy—pulsed uncontrolled from the bottom of the crystal. Cracks began to appear and rapidly started running up the length of the structure.
“You ignorant rats,” the General growled. “You’ve just attracted the attention of the Supreme Tri-Mage. Consider this battle lost.”
“I have had it with this guy,” said Cambria, and she sent her willpower hurtling toward him, determined to leap into his mind and seize control of him.
Instead she let out a scream and stumbled backwards. Coheed caught her before she hit the floor. “Cam!”
Deftinwolf advanced on them, cracking his knuckles. “You’ll beg for an easy death before I—”
He was interrupted by a series of internal explosions within the crystalline structure. The cracks were multiplying, running through its entirety. Coheed realized what was happening: the power was continuing to feed through to the monoliths, but there was no longer any sort of regulator. It was as if energy was being pumped continuously into batteries that were incapable of absorbing it all. The result was that both the batteries and the generator were being overwhelmed.
The gargantuan crystalline generator began to topple.
That was the moment Coheed realized it was toppling toward him and Cambria.
“Oh, crap,” he muttered. Even as he did so, he slung the insensate Cambria over his shoulder and started to run.
The General shouted imprecations after them, but seconds later they were drowned out by an escalating series of explosions.
Year of the Black Rainbow Page 3